


Bron-Yr-Aur 1970 (That's the Way)

by ledbythreads



Series: Heart in your hand [6]
Category: Led Zeppelin
Genre: 1970, Ambiguous Relationships, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Band Fic, Bron-Yr-Aur, Canon Compliant, Canon Timeline, Family, Friends (song), Jimmy Page & Charlotte Martin, Jimmy speaks, Led Zeppelin References, M/M, Of Many Kinds, One True Pairing, One Untrue Pairing, Pining, Queer Themes, Queer Writer, Robert Plant & Maureen Plant, Robert learns, Sex Magick, That's the Way (song), True Love, Yearning, assorted roadies, bonds are remade, influences are felt, jimbert - Freeform, led zeppelin iii, light and shade, limited period typical language, music is made, off grid, that necklace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-01-13 14:29:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 11,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21126239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ledbythreads/pseuds/ledbythreads
Summary: ‘He will never, never, stop loving him. This he knows. But he wants Jimmy to be happy, to have a child. To have something more than music to care for’Robert and Jimmy take their families to Bron-Yr-Aur to begin transforming their music and their relationship with each other. After taking Robert as his lover, Jimmy has fallen in love with Charlotte Martin. Robert still feels the pull of his bond to Jimmy but he also wants to grow and change...But - yknow. It's them. Can't keep away.





	1. Hear me calling your name...

Robert drives like he is sailing a little boat in high seas. Maureen nudges him occasionally to slow down on the country lanes, but mostly he knows she likes the feeling of adventure just as much as he does. Jimmy poses, gazing out the windows like he’s never seen sheep before, making the occasional sardonic comment to the adults, while carrying on a stream of sweet nonsense to Carmen who babbles on to Pay-gee. Only Jimmy seems to understand her replies. Carmen nestles in between Strider on one side and Charlotte on the other in the back of the jeep. Charlotte is almost, almost, perfect. If Robert didn’t feel like his heart was made of glass every time Jimmy smiles right up to his eyes at her, then she would indeed be perfect. Charlotte is, Robert had been surprised to discover, very funny. She is elegant and sophisticated, worldly and knowing, and she has an absolutely filthy sense of humour.

Driving to Wales Robert feels like a squire to a fairy queen that has borrowed his daughter. Charlotte could command armies, Robert thinks, she’s going to have no problems at all in an old Welsh farmhouse with an outside loo. Robert imagines Charlotte ripping the hem off her gown of white samite to bind the wounds of the fallen on a battlefield. Meanwhile Maureen on a black stallion, her leather armour covered in gore, gallops down the left flank ululating as she routs the Roman invaders, or perhaps Uruk-hai. Robert is just beginning to enjoy a fantasy of when Maureen is done with the orks and turns her attentions to routing Robert, when Jimmy begins making rather cutting remarks about wellingtons. Robert is momentarily content. Here they are, him and Jimmy, his dog, two beautiful women, one each. And best of all, Jimmy is going to be totally out of his depth. Robert is on home ground at last.

The last part of the drive is off-road and Robert finally feels that he has escaped the fishbowl. No Cole and no Peter. No electricity. They are going acoustic. Like Dylan in reverse their times are a-changing. Sandy and Clive are coming tomorrow with bits of kit, but for this afternoon, tonight, it is just the five of them. It’s not a warm day, it rarely is in Wales, but as soon as they arrive Robert takes off his shirt and shoes. He stands there, wide legged, drinking in the smell of freedom. Strider lopes sniffing everything and Robert considers if he too could just roll in the grass belly up. He imagines he feels a different kind of magic flowing up into him from the land. Not Jimmy’s electric storm magic, or even the fecund sexual magic of California. A wild but gentle twisting magic, a magic of long winding lanes where outsiders always get lost, where goddesses wear wildflowers and kirtles and will help you churn the butter. Where salmon leap and ravens speak to you of lost lovers.

Robert wonders mildly what the ravens will say to him about Jimmy. He will never, never, stop loving him. This he knows. But he wants Jimmy to be happy, to have a child. To have something more than music to care for. Robert feels heat in the place on his belly where Jimmy first touched him the morning they became lovers. Jimmy has left his mark on Robert in so many ways but this feeling, this heat, has become his constant companion, for nearly a year. Sometimes molten with lust, sometimes stinging with rejection, Robert thinks this is where they are joined together, where the bond between them is rooted whether they are lovers or not.

They haven't touched like that since Jimmy’s birthday, and Charlotte. Robert is glad to feel freer, to not have to worry so much if Jimmy is going to be open to him, to not always be so much off kilter. Robert feels like this year has been his apprenticeship, being unspokenly handfasted to this beautiful quicksilver man who has taught him so much. Now it is time to be his friend, to be a man, to grow up.

Robert hefts the boxes and cases out of the back of the jeep and hears a small click behind him. He turns and finds Jimmy lowering his camera. Robert’s belly flips. He recognises the possessiveness in Jimmy’s eyes. The same look Jimmy has given him as he had straddled Robert on the floor of his hotel room, as he had pushed him up against the wall of the supply closet at Olympia and twisted a mic lead round his wrists. Robert swallows, Jimmy looks away. Behind Jimmy Charlotte looks over at them both but Robert can’t read her expression.

Jimmy turns and Charlotte poses for him, now laughing, as he captures her too. Robert feels a warm hand on the small of his back bringing him to earth, and Maureen helps him into the kitchen with the luggage. Robert puts down his burdens hurriedly and takes Maureen into his arms. She smiles to find him already hard against her belly and Robert loses himself in her familiar intoxicating embrace. As Maureen pulls him upstairs their fingers interlaced Robert feels the memory of Jimmy pulling him along the beach in California.

As they enter a bedroom Robert feels his dream-Jimmy hesitate and stand waiting uninvited on the threshold. Robert closes the door firmly. Outside he hears acoustic guitar. Carmen sing-songing. Robert relaxes into the sway of this practiced sacrament Maureen and he have together, and forgets everything else but touch and response and the fire that grows between them. Only at the very very last does he bite back the need to cry out. To call Jimmy’s name.


	2. Cymru

When Robert and Maureen come back downstairs to knowing looks and teasing it all feels comfortable and natural between the couples. Robert usually finds Jimmy unpredictable whether they are alone or with other people. He can be difficult to handle, dismissive and distant, unless they are working, and Robert relies on a lot of sarcasm and piss-taking to keep things manageable and defend himself. Jimmy often simultaneously manages to make Robert feel like a clumsy oaf and a precious guardian angel, and the contrast makes Robert feel elated but also stupid. 

At the cottage Robert isn’t sure if it’s Charlotte’s influence, or the place itself, but Jimmy just isn’t trying to push Robert at all, or to control anything. It’s also Carmen, he thinks. Jimmy approaches Carmen like she is a tiny old woman who happens to be speaking another language. He acts as though everything she says is very wise even though he doesn’t quite understand it. Jimmy listens solemnly and nods as though Carmen has very good judgement as he chatters on to her about where to put their supplies, and asks if she’d like to be lifted up to see out the window. 

Charlotte arrives with an armful of logs for the fire and Robert is once again impressed, and annoyed at missing an opportunity to strut in front of everyone with his shirt off, splitting wood like a lumberjack. They are here for over a week and he’s sure there will be opportunities. Like lionesses, Charlotte and Maureen get on with the main work while Robert grooms his mane. Jimmy looks on as though he is too amused to concern himself with domestic things, but Robert also notices Jimmy studiously learning how to keep Carmen entertained and out of harms way. Robert knows Jimmy is innocent in the ways of the little folk. Jimmy did not grow up helping out with younger kids and babysitting like Robert and John. Nor has Jimmy had much to do with Jonesy’s daughters either. Robert has noticed Jonesy keeps Jimmy far apart from his family. 

Robert whistles to Strider and goes out to check on their surroundings. When he ducks his head under the lintel of the back door Robert remembers when he only came up to the door handle and he couldn’t quite see over the bottom half of a stable door. He used to wrap himself in the curtains at home and pretend to be Elvis, but when he was here he pretended to be Aragorn or Legolas. When he was that age he’d only read the Hobbit not Lord of the Rings. He’d liked the idea of roving around in a cloak protecting halflings. He hadn’t known then that being Aragorn involves the tragedy of loving an immortal dark elf who will watch you grow old and die. Robert knows Jimmy is not going to willingly choose a mortal life for Robert, the way that Arwen did for her true love. Robert pushes the thought away. He thinks a storm is coming. 

Robert gets to show off after all pumping and hauling water from the spring and demonstrating the kind of technical expertise with an Aga range that Jimmy reserves for the specifics of his amp settings. Robert explains about dampeners and updrafts like he is making up for the times Jonesy will ask him what key a song is in while batting his lashes at Jimmy knowing full well Robert doesn’t know how to answer. He’s glad it’s just the two of them. But it isn’t he reminds himself, and that’s lovely. They are both very lucky to have this time with their women folk. 

After dinner Robert baths Carmen in front of the fire. Robert understands that Carmen isn’t always sure who he is exactly. He thinks it must be like having a sailor or a soldier for a daddy, having one in a rock band. But with Maureen and Charlotte chatting together, and Jimmy picking out some new melodies, it all feels soothing. Robert really wants it to last and so the bath is taking forever. He’d thought that away from the touring, away from home, it would all feel instantly perfect. But it doesn’t, he’s felt up and down all day, as though the swell and tides of emotion from the past months are still just as strong, just as dangerous. Maureen sits up. 

“That’s enough now Rob, she’ll get fractious if I don’t put her down soon”  
Charlotte notes the tension “Ah, she’s been such sweet maid all day. Such a long day for one so small”   
“Well yes, when you have your own, you realise. When it’s just you, you need a routine” Maureen scoops Carmen up in a towel and takes her upstairs. 

Charlotte leans on Jimmy, her head on his shoulder, while Robert sits on his haunches with damp jeans feeling suddenly bereft. Outside he hears the first sound of distant thunder. 

“I best get more logs in” Robert says “Nobody will want to go out in that later” He ducks out into the rain before Jimmy or Charlotte can answer. 

As soon as he leaves the cottage Robert gets this feeling like he doesn’t belong there. Like he doesn’t belong anywhere. Touring is incredible. Intense. But he’s not sure if he can truly say he enjoys it, that it makes him happy. Now Maureen is talking about being on her own. He guesses she is, often. On her own with Carmen. Robert thinks he understands why John gets so bloody moody being away from Pat and Jason. Robert thought bringing Maureen and Jimmy here together would mean he could feel at peace, feel both sides of his life woven back together. But he doesn’t. He feels like it is already unravelling. 

Suddenly it hits him. Robert staggers under the weight of it and drops to his knees. He digs his fingers into the wet turf. The rain soaks through his curls and almost chokes him.   
The feeling of Jimmy suddenly behind him is so astonishing Robert can’t respond. Jimmy smells of wet wool and juniper. His embrace is so gentle as he wraps himself to Robert’s back. Shielding him.  
Robert just lets Jimmy hold him as he holds onto the earth, as though he can feel it spinning. 

“Baby...”  
“Don’t. Jimmy don’t”  
“Robertlove. It’s ok”  
“Fuck Jimmy, it’s not. It’s just not”

Jimmy wraps his arms tighter around Robert. Robert thinks how much Jimmy hates to get wet. How he is scared of storms and earthquakes and disasters. He doesn’t even have a coat on. Jimmy slips a hand under Robert’s shirt to that place on his belly. Robert feels a flash of anger and then sadness again. He lifts one wet hand and covers Jimmy’s hand with his own. 

“Come on. Let’s get you up. You’re soaked”   
Robert winces. Jimmy is picking up a lantern and pulling Robert under the deep eaves of the roof to shelter.   
“What?”  
“You said that to me once before, In California. The night we...”  
Jimmy looks at Robert in the lamplight, and when he doesn’t continue he does it for him.   
“The first time you made me come. I didn’t forget, Robert. I’m not an idiot. I’d wanted you. It wasn’t...”  
“But you don’t... now?”  
“Baby, how many lovers do you have, a week, a night?”  
“It’s not the same. Charlotte, she’s...”  
“Robert. You’re married. Were already married. And you fall in love with your dick twice a week.”

“Not like I did with you.” 

He’s said it. He didn’t use the words, but he’s said it.

Robert panics. He turns and holds on to Jimmy like he will be dragged away into the underworld. 

“Not like I did with you either” Jimmy sighs, pulls him in for a hug. It doesn’t feel sexual. It feels deeper than that. Lightning cracks the sky. Thunder. 

Robert laughs, a little too loose, a little shaky, but he laughs. 

“Did you plan the sound effects and the light show?”  
“No, but maybe your gods did this time”   
“I like Thor. I could write a song to thank him. For returning my dark lord to me.”  
Jimmy laughs softly “You’re mixing up your pantheons. Anyway this was your bloody love spell. Birthday wishes. Wishing me a wife.”  
“A wife?” Robert asks  
“I think so. Not on paper maybe. But I think so”  
“This doesn’t seem the right time for congratulations...”  
“No, you’re going to get flu and delay the next album. Let’s go in”   
“I didn’t get the logs”  
“Doesn’t matter. Charlotte knows, I think”  
“Christ Jimmy what the fuck do you mean”  
“About us. She’s a very perceptive lady”  
Robert stutters then just gawps, he stares at Jimmy.  
“Don’t be provincial baby - she’s seen everything. She’s a model Robert, her world holds different realities shall we say.”   
Jimmy kisses Robert lightly at his temple and pushes a wet lock of hair behind his ear. Then Jimmy picks up the lantern and holding it aloft, leads them back.


	3. Recorder

During the night Robert hears music. He wakes, and the moonlight is flooding into the room sideways across his bed and onto the wall to Jimmy's room. Robert knows exactly what the room beyond looks like, because when he used to visit Bron-Yr-Aur as a child it was where he had slept. He knows the big deep bedstead, the crazy pattern patchwork quilt, the carved headboard broad across the wall he is looking at. The wall from which the music is coming. Although the cottage doesn't have any electricity someone has given Jimmy a battery-operated tape player that can both play and record. It's a new design, small considering its functions. It's not Jimmy playing for sure, because underneath the music Robert can hear sounds from Jimmy that make his stomach clench.

Robert, stunned, stares at the ceiling while he listens to Maureen's smooth deep breathing on his left and the rock and roll of Jimmy and Charlotte's bed to his right. He hates himself for being a hypocrite, hadn’t he gone willingly with Maureen just hours before? But he can still feel Jimmy's arms round him in the rain, and he wants, so much, to have that now.

Robert turns away from the wall to face Maureen. Carmen is nestled like a little star in her arms between them. Robert can feel her baby breath and the still almost milky baby smell she has, the baby powder from her bath. He feels the glowing of her small life pulsing. Life he and Maureen made together. He wants it for Jimmy, a child, that irreplaceable feeling, he really does. But this is tearing him apart.

He knows every single plane of Jimmy's skin, every angle of muscle and sinew and bone. He can feel Jimmy's heartbeat under his hands, knows every catch of his breath. Robert knows what Jimmy smells like when they are fucking. He can taste him now.

Robert gets out of the bed as though he cannot help himself, be he knows he can, he knows what he is choosing as he chooses it. It is three short steps to the wall and Robert leans his whole body against the lath and plaster, feels the slight thud as the headboard knocks against his chest. Robert leans his forehead against the wall and closes his eyes, lost in the deep pull of his whole self to Jimmy. He knows what he can hear, the rhythm is different, but Jimmy is getting close.

Robert is burning half with knowing and half with shame. He puts his palm against the wall and spreads his fingers.

On the other side of the wall, bracing himself, Jimmy does the same.

* * *


	4. Pay-gee

In the morning, waking again, there is different music in Robert's head. Some of the strands of melody that Jimmy had been playing last night, while Robert bathed Carmen, are starting to net words to themselves in his mind.

It's just a sort of messy blues to his lady, about wanting to be her man, and love her round the world, something like that. The kind of words that he hums to himself about Maureen when he's not really concentrating. Robert reaches out across the bed, but Maureen must already be up and about.

Carmen is still sleeping, all her limbs thrown out, her hair a little sweat damp in the nest of warm blankets. Robert snuggles to curve around her, but she is all angles. Carmen opens her eyes as the bed dips and Robert is delighted as she reaches out to him with clear recognition and a giggle, immediately softening herself to snuggle closer to his chest. On the few other times recently when Robert has been with Carmen as she wakes, his heart has broken just a little as she immediately looks past him searching for her mother. This morning however Carmen is happy for Robert's protection and his heart feels like a dove in his chest.

"Dadda" Carmen says reaching for Robert's hair "Oh! Dadda. Da Da Da" She babbles.

"Bore da. Lovely girl" Robert smiles back "Did you sleep well?"

"Where gone?" Carmen waves her hands

"I think your mam's making breakfast baby" Robert says but Carmen looks perplexed.

"Pay-gee?" she asks

"I ask myself the same question love" Robert sighs

"My Pay-gee" Carmen says solemnly

"Yes love. My Pagey. My Pagey."

"Dadda?" Carmen reaches out to softly touch Roberts face. He remembers to smile.

"It's ok baby, it's nothing. Come on lovely girl shall we get up?"

"Up" Carmen holds both arms out and Robert scoops her out of the bed and swings her onto his hip as he walks to the window.

"Look baby it’s a new world. When I was a little boy I came here. Not as little as you though."

"Liggle liggle liggle" Carmen laughs "Da Da Da"

"Yes baby, when Dadda was a little boy. When you were not even a twinkle. Not even a star. Light of my life."

"Twinkle star... Dadda are...upa upa" Carmen sings

"Look there's Pagey now"

"Where Pay-gee?"

"In the yard, in his wellies. He doesn't look very pleased about the mud does he lovely?"

"Love. love Pay-geeeee."

"Yes baby. I do. I do. You understand. I didn't plan to sweetlove. I just do. I'm sorry baby."

"Dadda sad?"

"No... Not when I've got you lady. Shall I write a song today baby? A song with Pagey?"

"Oh! Dadda"

"Come on let’s go get your mamma to change you. Have some breakfast eh?"

Jimmy looks up and sees them in the window. He smiles.

"Twinkle!" Carmen says

* * *


	5. bottlewashers

Clive and Sandy arrive in a struggle with the last, off road, up a slope, part of the lane. They screech and slither into the yard and suddenly it’s not a romance anymore. They bring the stink of the Zeppelin machine with them like diesel fumes. Robert scowls and Carmen starts crying and snaking in his arms. Stageface, where’s his stageface. Fuck. 

Maureen isn’t having these dirty boys mess with her headspace. She strides out to meet them. Strong hand on the door of the van. Laughing but firm she demands fealty in her fiefdom. If this is going to turn into a circus, she is going to be the ringmaster. Robert and Charlotte hang back in the cottage doorway watching Maureen. Robert wonders if Jimmy will challenge her supremacy, but no, he’s just smiling, deferring, relaxing even. Long grey coat flapping, muddy wellies, playing the clown for her. Robert lets out the breath he didn’t know he was holding. He feels Charlotte’s hand on his shoulder. Their gaze on Jimmy.

“So now I must share,” she murmurs. “It’s hard sometimes.”

She steps out, alone. 

“No spotlights here Robert. Only sunlight.” 

Then Charlotte walks out, her long legs, catwalking stride, to join Maureen. As she passes Jimmy, she says something to him too low for Robert to hear. Her fingers brushing his. 

Jimmy stumbles over to Robert and Carmen like he’s still not used to walking on ground that isn’t as flat as a London street. Hops up onto the doorstep like they are kids playing sharks. Jimmy is well travelled, Robert thinks, India, Thailand. This is nothing. 

“Good morning love” He says to Carmen. Robert thinks he does. “Here let me take her. May I?” 

As Jimmy lifts Carmen from his arms, his eyes search for Robert’s. Then, for the briefest of seconds, he rests the flat of one hand over Robert’s heart. Robert relinquishes his daughter, flushing slightly. Watches her quieten and put her head to the crook of Jimmy’s neck. Thumbsucking she watches her daddy with happy eyes and Robert feels the sun come out. Feels the things he longs for become possibilities. 

“She missed you” Robert says.

“I’m right here”

“I know”

Jimmy’s eyes are steady. 

“I promised her we’d write a song today” Robert says 

“So, you can take me somewhere quiet”

“Ok, Pagey”

Robert feels on the threshold of something. The cool of the cottage behind him. The deep stone walls. The chaos in the yard, Clive unloading kit, Maureen shooing Sandy like he is one of the ducks. Charlotte. Charlotte looking back at them. But when Robert turns, Jimmy’s eyes are already on him. 

“Beautiful”

“Eh?” Robert blushes

“Here. So beautiful”

“I wanted you to see”

“Show me. Show me everything.”

* * *

They lie in the grass. A field above the cottage. The sun has dried the land and warmed them, though a shimmer of wetness remains beneath the hedges and in the slight dampness of the earth under their backs. 

They touch at shoulders, not hips. Their hair mingling like freshwater meeting the sea. The bees are buzzing like old bluesmen. The sunlight like flashes of steel guitar. A bee lands on Robert and he holds up his arm while she stumbles, pollen drunk, over the brass hairs of his forearm, across his palm to fly free. 

“I’m glad you thought of this place” Jimmy says “It was the right thing to do. Everything has been very heavy. It doesn’t have to be.”

“Jimmy, I don’t know how to talk to you about music, not like Jonesy can. But I want to weave some light in. Something. I’ll have to show you. I have to show you here.”

“But you always could talk with me, from the beginning, even if I didn’t want to spoil some of the things you loved. I saw Jefferson Airplane you know. They just fell apart live. But you, from the first, you let it inside you, let it ride you, that same spirit, but you never falter.”

Robert half turns to face Jimmy, propping himself up on his crooked arm. He feels that pull in his belly. He feels Jimmy’s words caress him. 

_ Don’t Pagey.  _

_ Don’t stop. _

So often he feels his own words clearly now. Showing them to Jimmy. Can he?

“It’s you.” 

Intro. No drums, just the melody. 

“I feel you… I feel you  _ inside _ me. Always.”

That tension in the air between them, like feedback. 

He wants to cover Jimmy with his whole body. He wants to feel himself push Jimmy into the earth. He doesn’t reach out; he wants Jimmy to feel as starved as he has felt. Since the winter. 

That slight blush under Jimmy’s skin. Good. He sits up onto his haunches. Lets Jimmy see the arch of his back and the curve of his ass. The view he most often has on stage. Uncurls himself to standing. Jimmy must know he’s being given a show. 

“Pagey. You coming?” 

Robert picks up Jimmy’s guitar, starts leading them back along the track, retracing their footsteps down towards the cottage. It’s only wide enough for them to walk one in front of the other and Jimmy is trotting at Robert’s heels. Nettles as high as their waists. Brambles, with newly uncurling leaves, grasping at the hems of their jeans. 

The track dips into scrappy woodland, hardly a copse, overgrown and unmanaged. The smell of last nights rains and the ground is soft under foot. Robert is humming. A tune Jimmy had been making the frame of, but he’s softening the edges, lilting. Some larger oaks, beech, ash. The canopy has kept down the undergrowth here, Silvered tree roots. Moss and fern. Jimmy still behind him. His page. Robert carrying Jimmy’s guitar like a shield. He puts it down reverently on dry ground against a tree. Turns. Jimmy. 

Jimmy so solemn. The green light reflecting into the green of his eyes. An elf in grey.

Tam Lin. Sandy Denny in his thoughts. Should he pull Jimmy from his horse, and hold him as he changes? Would Jimmy do the same for him? A snake, a lion, a naked knight? Cloak him like he did in the rain last night? 

He pushes him then, both hands on Jimmy’s chest, eases him back against the oak with inexorable decision. He will hold him whoever he becomes, lover, friend, father. Husband. Everything changes. Robert isn’t a child running in these woods anymore, he is a grown man and Jimmy is under his hands. Both hands on Jimmy’s chest Robert spreads his fingers out like butterfly wings and feels him, feels Jimmy breathing. He slides his hands up to Jimmy’s throat, cups the sides of his face. Jimmy’s carotid artery under his palm. 

Robert feels that pull, like his atoms are rearranging themselves towards Jimmy. It’s hard to keep a grip on himself. Jimmy’s eyes are wide. That look he gets. But fucking won’t solve this. Not yet. 

_ ‘I love you’  _ He can say it with his eyes. At least. 

Robert waits and the ground doesn’t open under his feet. Jimmy’s face is a mask, but his pulse betrays him. 

_ ‘I love Maureen. I love whichever girl is in my bed, till the night. I love you Jimmy Page. Love doesn’t cancel out love.’  _

Robert steps back. Releases him. 

“Play for me?”

Jimmy nods his assent. Smiles. 

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tam Lin is a traditional Scottish borders story about a mortal knight held enchanted by the faerie horde. He falls in love with a mortal woman. To rescue him she must undergo a trial of steadfastness, by pulling him from his horse and holding onto him while the faerie queen battles with her by changing his form. This trope of holding a person through transformation is common all across British folklore. I think it fits with Jimmy Page's desire to work with musicians who could transform and evolve, and Bron-Yr-Aur as the roots of Zep's transformational leaps through the third and fourth albums.
> 
> Fairport Convention released their version of Tam Lin in 1969 on their groundbreaking Leige and Lief album with Sandy Denny singing. Robert and Jimmy were strongly influenced at this time by the upswell in modern British folk-rock, as you can hear on Led Zeppelin III. When things fall apart for Denny and Fairport later, she sings on the fourth album for Battle of Evermore, and goes on the tear with Robert Plant. There is so much to say about how Robert was influenced by female singers like Joplin, Slick, and Denny, but I will leave that for another day. 
> 
> First let past the horses black and then let past the brown  
Quickly run to the white steed and pull the rider down
> 
> For I'll ride on the white steed, the nearest to the town  
For I was an earthly knight, they give me that renown
> 
> Oh, they will turn me in your arms to a newt or a snake  
But hold me tight and fear not, I am your baby's father
> 
> And they will turn me in your arms into a lion bold  
But hold me tight and fear not and you will love your child
> 
> And they will turn me in your arms into a naked knight  
But cloak me in your mantle and keep me out of sight
> 
> [writer credit Dave Swarbrick 1969 / Fairport Convention/ Leige and Lief]
> 
> This chapter was written during beta exposure therapy with @thebookhunter [@incredifishface on tumblr] - we are more cahooters than betas I think and all errors are my own - but I want to thank you fishie for everything, our own writing transformations in particular.


	6. Part two: Turn

  
  
  


I thought you were going to kiss me. It is how we have opened each other up - this whole year. Opened  _ to _ each other;  _ into _ each other. Each time. Before. Portals of touch; into new dimensions. Shadows. Secrets and lies our greatest truths. But now I’m watching you grow. You hold something back from me for the first time. Now. Now I will give you everything.

“Play for me” you say.

And take back your hands. I feel the imprint of your fingertips like notches in the bridge over my heart. Like you have strung something between us.

You are so beautiful to look at that sometimes it hurts me. I’m not a man who can say these things. Even to myself.

We don’t need to explain. We can communicate with a look unseen by thousands. Music comes easy between us. So does fucking. You think I haven’t touched you since Charlotte? But I touch you every night we play. You know that.

‘I feel you inside me. Always’

I wanted you to fuck me under the open sky. Right then. But you called me to heel instead.

I pick up the Sovereign. Check the tuning. I know you love to watch me tune by harmonics, so I take longer than I need to. I can talk to you better this way. Pressing the right places. The sound rings out clearly.

_ ‘Ask me’. _

You are pacing. How you move is changing. You are softer here. But also, more self-assured. 

_ ‘Ask me’ _

I’m waiting for you.

You take a deep breath and - you just are. Perfect. Not without flaw. Just entirely yourself. I don’t know if you are aware you are singing scripture.

_ To everything – turn turn _

_ There is a season -  _ “don’t make a face”

_ And a time to every purpose under heaven _

You grin. Ok baby, have it your way. It’s an easy melody.

_ A time to be born, a time to die _

_ A time to plant, -  _ your lopsided grin _ \- a time to reap _

_ A time to kill, a time to heal -  _ your hands out to me

_ A time to laugh, a time to weep _

“See didn’t kill you Pagey”

Chorus. You play with the timing. I break it down in counterpoint. It sounds terrible.

You sway. Dig your feet in for the next verse. Trying not to laugh. Better.

_ A time to build up, a time to break down _

_ A time to dance, a time to mourn _

_ A time to cast away stones –  _ your voice breaks on the line. You look away.

_ A time to gather stones together _

I know baby. I know. I put that into the playing. You hear me. You always hear me.

_ To everything - turn, turn, turn _

_ There is a season - turn, turn, turn _

_ And a time to every purpose under heaven _

Your breath is running out on the lines. Although you are singing both parts you could do that easily. You are choking something down. You turn your back to me.

You miss the next two lines. Just moving your hands over where the words would be.

-

-

_ A time you may embrace _

_ A time to refrain, from embracing _

  
  


I can’t go to you and keep playing. I falter. I catch and bend the tune as it falls.

You must come to me. If that is what you want. And take me.

  
  


_ To everything –  _ I sing the second part

_ There is a season -  _ you turn

_ And a time to every purpose under heaven _

_ A time to gain, a time to lose _

_ A time to rend, a time to sew _

_ - _

_ - _

  
  
  


Your words fade away. There is so much longing in your eyes. Decision too.

You kneel before me. You take the Sovereign out of my hands. There is reverence in your touch. You put it out of harm's way. Your eyes never leave mine.

I feel coveted; sanctified; I can still hear you singing. You are silent.

You tip my face up and the world inverts. The light through the leaves. Through your hair. The halo all the photographers try to capture is real. Your hand on my jaw isn’t asking permission. Just awaiting it. Nobody. Nobody moves me like you do.

I have this dream. This recurring dream. I fall from the stage and the crowd rips off my clothes. That many women at once fuck me. That I’m dying. But you. Your touch feels like life itself. You feel holy to me. Where you touch me, I feel blessed.

“Touch me”

“Where?” The answer is an old joke between us now.

“Please” I’m falling into the light. Pins and needles on my skin.

“No. Jimmy. Stay.”

It’s not a suggestion this time. You wait for my eyes to focus. Then focus on you. Then. Then you kiss me. We kiss. We kiss like we make music. Taking what the other gives and improvising. Building. Daring each other to feel more. More. Only this. Your hands on my shoulders. Holding my arms at my sides. You are holding yourself back from me. It makes me want to scream. Pete Seger and the bloody Byrds. All that jangly sweet California wine and marigold petals. Then you kiss me like metal smacking on metal. Like steel being forged. All that sharp edge you learned from my body. From  _ my _ jagged edges and my fickle traitorous heart.

Then you are laughing. Why are you laughing? But it’s infectious. And you grab me. Wrestle me. I’m laughing too. Rolling with you. Till it’s hard to breathe.

“Pagey. Fuck. Your face!”

You are on your back. I’m draped over you. Your laughter shaking your chest, shakes me too.

“Pagey. I fucking missed you. Jimmylove. Fuck”

It’s good. It’s better than kissing. I didn’t understand. I start to.

“It’s all alright. It’s all going to be alright” You are lit up. The most optimistic man I ever met. You astonish me. You hug me. I let you. I let you.

I let go.

“Don’t do that again, Jimmy. Don’t go off like that. Ok?”

“Ok?” I don’t know what else to say. I know I believe you. For now. I suspend disbelief.

“It’s all going to be fine. Better than fine. Glorious!”

This place. It’s like there is something in the water.

_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Turn! Turn! Turn! (Robert is thinking of the version by the Byrds) is almost completely an arrangement of the first eight verses of the third book of Ecclesiastes in the King James version of the Bible. It was set in this form by Pete Seeger the folk singer in the 1950s some time and recorded in 1962 by a band called the Limeliteers and then shortly after by Seeger's own band. The Byrds version was released in December 1965.  
Page and Plant IRL had very different views on West Coast psychedelia - as do Robert and Jimmy in this story. At Bron-Yr-Aur their shared but different take on folk rock can be heard really strongly. I think Jimmy is right and Robert doesn't know the origin of the song - but I know they both find something sacred in the other. A lot of my writing has been from Robert's POV and I'd love to hear it feels like to hear Jimmy speak so directly, as he does in this chapter. As always.
> 
> ps - the dream the character Jimmy tells is canon - based on the recurring dream IRL Jimmy Page had photographer Ron Raffaelli make an art piece about (Jimmy was photographed naked with Cynthia Sue Wells, Miss Cyndarella of the GTOs, with offal used to show his guts being exposed)


	7. Lap

_The girl I love has long black wavy hair_. So now does the man. My man. You, the man I love. You, the man who loves me. I hear you Jimmy. It’s all going to be glorious. The sun is gold across the valley. I’m calling your name. 

You come to me under the old apple tree and snake around my knees with your long long legs and your beautiful fingers. I want to pull you across my lap and spank you. I want to hold the apples of your bum in my hands. I want to make you gasp and squirm against me. Punish you for this long winter. It’s over. Today I want to be tempted. I want to suck your tongue and taste what it’s like to be so prepared to lie. Not that you have to. You chose us both well. Your lady. Your prince. 

I fold my fingers into the pages of my notebook to keep them out of harms way. I press the words I make for you to keep them quiet. Jimmylove. Kiss them out of me. One by one. I will hold them out in my cupped palm like fruit from a pomegranate. Take my words inside. Then kiss them back to me so I can taste my own seed in your mouth. Like the first time you kissed me. Then walked away. 

No more walking away. 

You make me bold. You make me horny. 

I can wait. 

Just a little longer. 

  
  


So, What have you brought me under this tree of knowledge? I know I can’t quit you. I know you did not leave me. After all. I dig the end of my biro into the pad of my thumb. I have written you underneath my skin in runes, and when you are near I feel them glowing a dangerous blue. I was a fool to try and bring all my worlds together. But I was right to bring you here. 

  
  


“Hey baby” you murmur. 

I try to look occupied with ethereal things such as meter and simile, but I’m getting hard for you already. Remembering your wet tongue on my cock. I hold the notebook across my lap. I’m thinking about the print of my hand on your ass and if you’d plead with me to do it again. I smile up at you. A little longer. I’ve written you poetry, but what I want to whisper in your ear is how hard you are going to make me come. 

“Hey Pagey” 

Does my voice sound rough? After months of swallowing down your name. Yesterday I called you and you came. I can wait. Your fingers brush my knee and marsh fire flows between us. I look at your mouth, your chest, your crotch. I look back up at your eyes and you flush. Good. Your body remembers everything. Show me what you’ve got. I will show you mine. 

You always play more easily than you explain in words. Though you are so elegant in interviews. So erudite. You can make yourself understood when you want to. Like the time you said _"I want you to come and then I want you to fuck me."_ Like a good set list you knew you wanted the second number to last. Sometimes I wonder if you can hear me thinking about you like this. I wonder how loud my wanting gets. 

  
  


You are coiled tight. Are you nervous? You kneel in the grass with your 12 string between us like a shield once again. Protecting your honour. I lay my book aside and lean back against the tree splay legged. Look all you like Jimmy. I could get turned on just by seeing glimpses of your wrist underneath your shirt cuffs. All I’ve got to give. Rings. Pearls. I still wear the coin you gave me warm against my solar plexus. You like to kiss me there. Your hand between my thighs. Before you snake lower. 

  
  


The opening. It’s harsh. Discordant. You make me laugh inside. I bring you away from all your amps and you write even heavier. You love that tension between situation and expectation. I nod knowingly. It’s good. It’s always good. But now you come to me to make it better. I run my fingers over my stomach pushing up my tshirt. It just makes you play more intensely. I’m not trying to distract you from the music, I’m just making myself part of it. The strings sound loose and the tuning is different. I feel the thunder in it. A wild night. Heartache. Oh Jimmy. The light is dappled through the sweet green of apple blossom waiting to open. I want to lay you on a bed of meadowsweet and roses. Instead you bring me this tune with a broken wing. Like an injured crow hopping across a church yard. 

Jimmylove. 

My dark Albion. 

So blue. 

You’re waiting for me to say something but instead I leave it to you. I wish I could just hold you. If I hadn’t turned this whole trip into some sort of traveling court. If there was somewhere in the world I could freely take your hand. I started to write about that. I don’t know if I will show you. I can wait, as long as you need me to. 

“You don’t want to hear why. We argued.”

Ah. Your other we. 

“I felt broken on the rocks. You know?” 

I do. 

You are picking a few notes with your nails. Hiding behind them. It sounds a little like sitar. 

You are looking at your fingertips and the strings although you don’t need to. 

  
  


“I was wrong about... loneliness. I missed you”

  
  


I’ve learned not to touch you when you are like this. It feels like an ache not to try.

  
  


“So much” 

  
  


I nod. Words are already coming to me. They won’t be what you expect though. We don’t need another song about a woman done me wrong, laid in my bed, gone and left me, shook me, took me. I pull my notebook back into my lap and sit up cross-legged. I can hear Carmen laughing as Maureen runs after her and swings her skyward. Clive is whistling a song by The Pretty Things. Everyone is oblivious to us. To what you mean to me. I want to pull you into my lap and cradle you. Your long black wavy hair spilling over my shoulder. 

  
  
  


_‘Had a friend, you once told me, “You got love, you ain’t lonely”, then you went and left me only, looking for what I knew’_

Something like that. It’s sinuous the thing you’ve written. Always looping back to its center. A snake biting its own tail. 

  
  
  


Looking for what I knew. 

That I’m your lover. And your friend. That I always will be. 

  
  
  


“I’m right here.” 

“I know baby. I know.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Friends' was one of two songs that were completed at Bron-Yr-Aur cottage in spring 1970 for Led Zeppelin III. The other is 'That's the Way'. Jimmy says in a couple of interviews that he'd written the melody at his home studio and that it was after 'he'd argued with his wife' who at the time was Charlotte Martin, they had been together a few months. He's also said it was ironic that Robert wrote lyrics for it about friendship. Robert says he wrote the lyric under an old ruined apple tree at the cottage. I have no idea if he wrote with a biro ;) 
> 
> Friends uses open C tuning (Jimmy often uses different guitar tuning) and later to record it at Headley Grange JPJ arranged it and he and Jimmy learned to play various stringed instruments because Zeppelin with only 2 exceptions never used guest musicians/vocalists. JP and RP did record a version with other musicians in Bombay in 1972 and also various versions in the 1990s as Page/Plant. 
> 
> Geek note: I'd have loved to match this story to the (neo) pagan myth of the goddess Eostre associated with the full moon after the spring equinox. This is the pre-Christian myth of rebirth and why 'Easter' is the word for the Christian festival in English not a variation of 'passover' as it is in others. In some traditions it is also when the summer king is born and the winter king must go back to the underworld. I prefer to think of them as lovers who balance each other by flux in who is the most confident. Unfortunately Eostre in 1970 was on 23rd March and Zeppelin were still on tour. This story is coming up on Beltaine though. The most sexual of the pagan fire festivals ;) 
> 
> The lyric from 'Friends' is bastardized to second person. Lyrics are also given from 'The Girl I Love Has Long Black Wavy Hair' which Zeppelin performed at a BBC Session in 1969 (I think John Bonham is the main writer and composer) - the single performance was released on the BBC sessions compilations.  
There's also a reference to How Many More Times from LZ II.
> 
> as always feel free to chat in the comments or find me on tumblr. Fandom is communal.


	8. Part III - Places

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Parts of this chapter refer to the story Push Push with happens exactly a year before. You can read it with or without.

He’s walking in the water and the wavelets are dragging gently at his ankles and soaking his jeans. The stone with the hole is in his pocket. Maureen and Carmen are sitting on the blue blanket his mum had at the old house. Maureen is breastfeeding again, Carmen stopped a long time ago. The beach is deserted, Maureen is naked, her skin glistening. Something glints in the water and he reaches down and lifts the sword. It fits his grip perfectly and he turns to show Maureen, but Jimmy is there between them. Jimmy’s eyes are like a storm coming. He kneels and Robert is already hard, and his wet jeans are heavy, too heavy to move. Jimmy’s tongue is wet and slick. And Maureen is smiling and nearer. Her mouth is on his mouth, hot and wet and tasting of salt, as he fucks deeper into Jimmy’s mouth, and her hand is in Jimmy’s hair, and the water is up to his thighs already, and Jimmy pushes a hand slowly through his skin and inside his belly, and he wakes with this incredible ache in his chest and his hand jammed between his thighs. His balls tight against his body as though he’s been kicked in the groin.

Grey light like Jimmy’s storm eyes. Not night, not yet the dawn. Carmen curled against Maureen’s back. Maureen is wearing one of his old tour shirts and Carmen has curled her hand in the hair at the nape of Maureen’s neck. He slips out of the bed and into his jeans and out of the circle of his family. Choosing. Soft old Tshirt. Thick sailor jersey. Walking socks. At the last minute he fumbles in the clutter of Maureen’s baby bag, among the cotton wool and the miniature soft hairbrush. A small grey tub. Robert stuffs it in his pocket and leaves. 

The door to Jimmy and Charlotte’s room is shut fast. Downstairs strider looks up expectantly and Robert ignores him, picking up his heavy boots from the back of the sofa that Sandy is sprawled asleep on. Strider is not a good dog particularly, but he’s bred to be quiet thank fuck. Out the door, past the van, and he is. He’s there. Leaning against the tree eating an apple. With the dream still half on him Robert feels he could just fuck Jimmy right there; or could kneel and suck his cock, amid the soft earth and the dandelions. He adjusts himself in his jeans and looks Jimmy straight in the eyes. Four months. Come. On. Jimmy turns on his heel and this time it’s Robert who has been called. The same coat. Robert remembers how a year ago Jimmy wrapped it round his shoulders as he shivered. Jimmy’s cum spattered across his stomach for the first but certainly not the last time. How it felt like a blessing.

Jimmy knows this part of the way and he leads them up through the gorse and along the steep sheep track to the kissing gate above. Then he stops and Robert slips into his arms like the mist on mountains, like milk into tea, like a year and a day. Like a promise never broken. Jimmy smells like juniper and sage. Like he’s been fucking someone else. Like home.

“Hello baby”

“Jimmy. Jimmylove.” He lets the catch into his voice. His hands up into Jimmy’s armpits under his jumper. Palms against skin, fingertips finding soft hairs. Robert wants Jimmy’s scent on him. Jimmy clasps his arms right round him and holds his hands together at the small of Robert’s back. Brow to brow. Like horses.

“Mayday. You remembered”

Jimmy butts Robert’s head gently.

“I do not need to remember. I know. I came to you. That time.”

“You did? Eh? Took you all night”

Jimmy smiles “To everything there is a season. A time. An appointed hour.”

“Well it better be fucking soon Jimmymate or I’m just gonna go jerk off behind that tree.”

“And miss me watching?”

“You never stopped watching”

“No”

“So? Where shall…”

“Show me. Places”

But first Robert kisses him. And Jimmy is the only one. The only place he wants to be is him.

Jimmy makes it slow. Really slow. Robert feels Jimmy drinking him down. He has never been this soft. Teasing his bottom lip. Sucking it. Tracing the outlines of Robert’s lips with the tip of his tongue. Then slipping inside. So slowly. Filling him with something molten and heavy. And then taking the feeling back into himself till he is fat on it and happy like a small buddha.

“Take me there baby. However far you want to go. We won’t come back till you have enough”

Robert wants to pick Jimmy up and carry him over the boundary wall but instead they walk through together. Hand in Hand. Higher. Higher. They have time. As they walk the light builds with each step and Robert feels the world come awake around them. In them. He knew it would be wonderful. Jimmy is his wonderful one. They have turned towards each other again. Without end.

Up beyond the treeline the valley opens. Legs fallen apart. The stream between them. Small waterfalls. Robert remembers days lying on his belly sunning himself like an otter on a rock. Somewhere this way. If it’s still there. The year he found hundreds of tiny frogs marching through the grass. The kingfishers and the dragonflies. As iridescent as the backplate on Jimmy’s telecaster. As fast as Jimmy’s fingers. A secret place. Their legs are straining now. Not just lust making them breathless. And then over the rise it flattens out into a small bowl. A cupped hand of land. The source of the stream.

“Here. Jimmylove. Here”

“Yes”

“Jimmy I…”

“What baby?”

“I never did uh… I never brought anyone else here. Only you”

“I know baby. Come”

Jimmy spreads his coat on the grass. They sit and watch the sun rise. A year. What a year.

“Hail to thee who art Ra in thy rising” Robert says

“Yes” Jimmy smiles “The same sun wherever we are”

“I want…” Robert stops, he feels so open. His heart feels robins egg blue.

“Ask me. Anything.” Jimmy’s hand on his thigh. No rush. No time. No gigs. No studio. Just this touch. This day.

“I want you to make the great rite with me”

Jimmy just tightens his fingers. Robert feels the yes in them, but he wants to be sure.

“I know I’m not taught or anything but…”

Jimmy shushes him his two fingers to Robert’s lips.

“You’ve been doing it three four times a week for months Robert. You know. Don’t think you don’t know.”

“My magic. Land magic”

“Mine too now. Your gift, right?”

“Acoustic” Robert laughs

“Hippie. Sure. You are the land baby. And the sun. All the putting it down in books is just a game. A puzzle. You’re Zeppelin’s oracle, you don’t need a Haynes manual”

“John says you need a Haynes manual for everything”

“Well he’s taking the piss because no manual will teach you how to drum like Bonham. Ok empty your pockets”

“You first”

Two plectrums, some fuse wire, a heavy gold lighter, a coke spoon and no coke, sandwiches in greaseproof paper. The stone with a hole in it.

“Sandwiches?”

“For you. Don’t want you passing out”

“Sod off”

“Now you”

Harmonica. A spare. Clasp knife. Half a joint. A folded-up set list Jimmy had made into a love note. The little tub. Jimmy picks it up and unpops the lid. Thick white smell of zinc and caster oil.

“This is what precisely?”

“Bum cream”

“That’s fucking hilarious Robert.”

“It’s what you call it. When you have a baby”

“When…”

“I still want you to. Charlotte’s a queen Jimmy”

“Did it never scare you?”

“Nah. Carmen, I mean, she’s life. A new life. It’s just. You miss stuff. Touring”

“So, I’m your road wife”

“One of them”

“Try saying that with my hand on your cock baby”

“Game on”

“Robert Anthony your grasp of the profane would delight Crowley himself”

“I’m not interested in delighting anyone but you”

Jimmy laughs, but he’s blushing. He’s really happy. Really bloody happy.

“You’re glowing. You’re so fucking beautiful Jimmy”

Robert pulls Jimmy down. Pulls him against the full length of his body. Glories in him. Hand on his ass. Hand wound in his hair. The fire is there. Right below the surface. It’s easy as sin to kindle. Just as warm.

“Take your clothes off” Jimmy speaking into the crook of his neck. His voice is lower. Harder. Both of them strip. Robert thinks he has seen Jimmy fully naked maybe only a dozen times. He’s distracted now. Improvising. His cock only a little hard like velvet over leather. The muscles in his arms and across his back moving smoothly under his skin. His tiny perfect ass. Robert sits cross legged. Nature child. The coin that Jimmy gave him as always round his neck. A flatish rock. On top Jimmy unfolds the set list and weighs it down with the stone and the lighter, top and bottom, North, South. Opens Roberts knife and sets it to the east checking the directions from where the sun had risen. The plectrums, one black one white. He takes some of the bread off the sandwich puts it in the centre. Puts the rest aside. Coke spoon to the west. Joint behind his ear. Tosses the harmonica to Robert.

“Kneel here baby. Play me something”

It’s like being a kid again. Dreaming of Elvis the Pelvis. Hot blonde chicks. Now he is Jimmy’s hot blonde.

He plays a soft tune Jimmy has been picking out over the last couple days. It makes him think of boys in love. Sometimes he sees them looking up at the stage. Two boys in the hundreds. And the way they just are. He knows they are lovers. Knows they can see him loving Jimmy. Jimmy loving him back. Once a pair of those boys threw flowers and he took one and tucked it in the front of his jeans. And kept it. But the shit they get even for having long hair. Jimmy will never. Maybe.

Jimmy is there. Right there. He raises Robert to stand beside the little altar of scraps of their lives. He winds the fuse wire into a circlet and puts it around Robert’s hair. A featherlight crown. One thread. Silver on gold. Then Jimmy goes to the stream and cups his hands into the water. Brings it for Robert to drink. With wet hands he touches Robert between his eyes, his heart, his belly. His cock. Then he kisses where he touched. His tongue in Robert’s naval till his cock rises. Then he takes him, just long enough to get him really hard. Not long. And mesmerised Robert watches Jimmy dip his fingers in the zinc cream and write across his belly. Z like Zoro at the Saturday kids’ cinema show. oSo. The S like a snake. Then he’s kissing him again and he’s hard too, their cocks pushed together. Jimmy’s mark on him melting and smudged between them. Jimmy’s hand on both their cocks now, marking them white like sadhus in India who walk naked except for their dreadlocks and their paint.

He feels everything that Jimmy is on stage. The way he summons and spins. But the only sound is the beating of his heart and the soft moans he can’t help making against Jimmy’s teeth as they rut. And Jimmy takes him down to the ground and lies him on his belly, cock against the cool turf, and he spreads Robert’s legs and kisses slowly down his spine till he is fucking the ground and mewling with months of want and need and love and despite his courting of the last two days, with awe. And Jimmy is so loving, so patient. Taking nothing but Robert’s pleasure. Till for the first time. With nothing but a good glob of the cream he fucks Robert’s ass. Sodomising him under the wide open sky while Robert bucks against the earth herself, calling Jimmy’s name and laughing.

It feels like everything. This is not the easiest of positions, and he knows how tight it is from when he has been the one on top. But Jimmy’s weight on him, His one wiry arm wrapped under Robert’s chest to give him leverage as he fucks. The stretch is flooding him with trippy pins and needles of fire all over his skin. His cock feels sort of far away as sensation diffuses and ripples. He feels ridden. Like white horses into battle. Like surf against rocks. Jimmy must have done this before. He is too fucking good. Jesus fucking Christ. There. Like he does with his fingers. Yes. Fuck. Jimmy is pulling at his hips. Up to all fours. Relentless. Fucking Christ. Jimmy so many times under him. Robert hopes to fuck this is what Jimmy was feeling, because if it is, Jimmy will never leave him. Never. Is this why being a fag is so spat on. Just to keep it secret that the way to come hardest is with a cock turning your insides to lava. Fuck. Jimmy. Jimmy love. Slower now. Snake hips. Elvis moves. Pulls Robert up to kneeling and he leans back into the sway. Jimmy’s hand on his cock, greasy still with bum cream. Taking care of him. Robert slits his eyes open and gazes at the sky. Knees rubbed raw against the land itself. Feels himself become meshed in the web of it. Bron-Yr-Aur. Golden breast. Being fucked by his magical lover. His dragon who was sleeping, like the ones under Dinas Emrys Hill, till Merlin cast his spell and freed them. And he comes then. Arching and shaking and wordless. Seed on the land.

Jimmy is still inside. Just holding. Rocking gently. And Robert wants him so much. So much. They will be princes together. And Jimmy kisses him.

“Jimmy, in my arms, please. I want.”

He slips out and turns Robert onto his back. One knee up. Slides home propping himself on his arms. It’s super sensitive but they kiss as they fuck and it’s warmer now the sun is up, and when Jimmy comes it’s soft and full of grace, and he’s happy. Still happy as they roll apart and stare at the sky. Then Jimmy breaks the bread and they eat it, and the rest of the sandwiches. Smoke the joint. Lazy.

“Jimmy”

“Baby?”

“I want to be with you”

“You already are”

“You’re my only one”

“I just say that to make you come hard baby”

“No you don’t”

“No, I don’t”

“You’re my only… you”

“Ok baby what will you give the gods”

“For why?”

“To marry me”

“My sun necklace. My coin”

“Oh baby”

They stand hand in hand by the spring and kiss. And Robert takes his coin and drops it into the water.

“The same sun wherever we are”

“Always. Robert. Always”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the ritual that Jimmy makes for Robert is Wiccan but the Great Rite is also part of the Gnostic mass (Liber XV) of Thelema. Mostly though it is the real magic of shared lives, shared things. If you want to ask about this sort of stuff then message me (contacts in my profile) rather than in open comments. Occult means hidden - as fic Jimmy likes to say and IRL Jimmy likes to show. 
> 
> Tizian23 - I borrowed your lighter.
> 
> Bum cream is real. Don't use it with a condom though because it is oil based. And use a condom. It's not 1970.


	9. Know

I don't know if you realize what you have done.

What we have done.

You know most accidents don't happen climbing mountains, but rather trying to come back down afterwards?

You are fucking glowing, and I feel like I'm trying to hide the sun under a ratty old sack. The kind people use to drown kittens.

How can I take any of this away from you? I didn't know to wish for you, so I cannot say I was careful about it, but I was never reckless. The more I let you in, the more I have. But this cornucopia is too much. How can I hold it all together?

If G were here, he'd make a plan so outrageous it couldn't fail. He just demands that the world pays tribute to me, to us, in ways that I couldn't even politely mention. I understand why he loves you so much. You give me everything in gold. But the more you give, the more you have for yourself.

For us all.

We say it is the music. That it's this place. How creative. Like all good lies this is true.

It does excite me, the new numbers we are making. Beyond measure. But when I think about your lyrics, I am also thinking of the way you held your notebook coyly in your lap. And then you set it aside so I could see how the music made you hard. My music. 

When I waited for you this morning, beneath that same tree, I had already realized that what this album needs. What I need. Is to love you.

If I could have the child with you, I would.

I cupped the apple pips on my palm before throwing them into soft earth. I know already what the cover will look like. It will be an almanac, the circle of the year. Your seed is in me, and mine in you. So, let's grow something that is in both of us.

Threes are for birth.

You laid yourself down for me, this morning, like the goddess himself. Your maidenhead to bless the crops. But here you are with your child on your knee and your wife at your side. You can't stop talking, you are so happy. Already the more you speak, the less you say. You are learning.

Clive and Sandy have cooked a big meal because it's Friday, and later we are to go to the pub. Our wedding feast. I don't know how I will feel the first night you go to someone else's bed.

What did you do the first night I went to Charlotte's? I remember looking across the room at your eyes saying yes. Go. Would I have gone without your blessing? We both know I would. What can I say to you now? Except I will miss you.

Miss you?

Like an arrow that goes so far off target it kills someone else.

I didn't realize what I had done setting you aside the way I did. I said to myself I fucked you every night in front of thousands. But it is not the same as touching you alone. My only one.

If the maenads come now and rip me apart, I will have deserved it.

I feel a pulling at my sleeve.

“Paygee sad?”

“No love, just thinking”

“look”

She tries to put an apple on her head. I catch it.

Say “give it to your daddy.”

You look over at me then and smile. She runs to you and you take the apple from her hand. Peel it with your clasp knife. Round and round till the peel comes off in a perfect spiral. You beam at me. I think it's meant to be a good omen. You slice up the apple into a little bowl for Carmen, but instead she offers a piece to everyone.

When we come to clear the table, Maureen throws the peel into the fire. I can't blame her. She needs to see you without your charms.

We are walking to the pub. Charlotte pulls me behind. She's looking at you with Carmen on your shoulders. The tallest of us all is the smallest.

She says “Tomorrow or the day after. They will be good days for a baby. If you wait”

I melt like honey and kiss her. We are in the middle of a field of clover and I feel ridiculous, and happy.

Ridiculously happy.

Blessed.

_‘If I wait.’_

_If_ I.

She says “I will ask her to come with me. Back to London. And bring the child”

I understand then it is a day for bargains. My lady commands me.

“What you will make with him will never be home. Don't try. That's all I ask.”

Was I wrong baby? to say yes. To promise?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are references back to events that happen in the story 'Birthday (1970)' which can be found in this series, but this chapter can be read without knowing that story.


	10. mamma says

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At last they can be alone together. Be careful what you wish for. 
> 
> The last chapter, but not the end of the story.
> 
> "But now's the time to look and look again at what you see,  
Is that the way it ought to stay?"

The bracken drags at my ankles, the edge of the tape player digs into my back with each stride, I'm thirsty, and I want to trip you up so you go sprawling on your backside and smash your bloody precious guitar. Ok it's not the guitar's fault. It's your fault. You are trouble in paradise, my love.

We are walking the top edge of a small ravine so you can be inspired by nature, like a tin-pot Wordsworth. You walk like you belong here now, and it makes my teeth ache. Just a little push and you'd be arse over tit, and with any luck fetch up in some nettles. Fuck you Jimmy Page. Fuck you and your stupid fishing hat, and your perfect ass, and your beautiful long legs.

Fuck you and your scheming, and how much I just want to be your dog and show you my belly, whatever you do.

Today is our honeymoon.

I never asked you to send them away. That wasn't what. That isn't what. I wanted. I want you so fucking much. So much.

I'm dragging further and further behind. You look like a troubadour with your guitar in its soft case on your back.

_'It ain't right, it ain't right, it ain't right' _

I hear a refrain to the tune you have been playing with for days. I think of the beautiful boys who come to watch us with their arms round each other. I think of waking up with Carmen snuggled against my chest. I think of her mamma.

_Mamma says, Mamma says..._

Says she is leaving me to be alone with you. To get on with the album, she says. Back to London with Charlotte, she says. Makes sense, she says. ‘_It’s good if Page is focussed more on you’_, she says. But when I tried to pull her close, she pushed my hands off and started folding the washing. Carmen's little frock with the tiny daisies on it. It's getting too small for her.

You must have done this, but I don't know how. I never asked you to.

Last night outside the pub. You sitting with Carmen on your knee, and Charlotte your elf queen. A royal family. I looked at you and thought, I'd give you a child if I could. I'd bear it for you. I could still feel your seed in me. Your fingertip bruises on my hip bones. Your vows against my lips.

The night me and Maureen married I was on stage with you, not her. I was already trying to be faithful to you both. The night me and you married, I undressed for her in the dark, so she wouldn't see your marks on me.

Oh Jimmy. After. She pulled my face up from between her legs and I thought, she knows. It was just the way. The things she wasn't saying. A watchfulness that wasn't there before. Despite. You know. Despite all the others.

I felt, for just a moment, adulterous. Unfaithful. To you. This isn't what I wanted. When they call us fags. Oh god. I don't worry about it here, but there. I'd take a bullet for you if I had to. I know you wouldn't for me.

_'That's the way. That's the way it ought to stay'. _

Even G thinks so. Fuck you both.

_'Temptation, Page flies out the door_

_You follow, find yourself at war_

_Watch waterfalls of pity roar_

_You feel the moan but unlike before_

_You discover_

_That you'd just be_

_One more person crying.*'_

You said we don't need to explain but you never said it would feel like this. All these months I was without you. They never hurt like this.

One day. One day later and...

You say _'be careful what you wish for'_ but then you tell me love is the law.

You say _'you're the land baby'_ but then you make plans that leave me strip mined. Polluted. I stuff my hands in my pockets and lope after you. The fucking recorder weighs a ton. I might just chuck it in a bush and fuck off to the pub. Flirt with anyone who isn't you.

Carmen was two months old and you had us playing fucking Denver on Boxing day. Me and John spent Christmas day waiting for you to arrive like Jesus.

I think you don't give a shit about family, but then Carmen looks at your face and sees everything pure in you. I know you will make a good dad. Better than me.

If I don't murder you first.

She's only just learned to trust me, and you are sending her away.

You know what the old dears say when they find out somebody's son turned out a fairy? Oh dear, now he will never give her grandkids.

Is that what you think? That loving me isn't ok for my daughter? Or are you suddenly jealous?

The path splits and you turn round, waiting. Your smile is like daybreak. You are so happy I want to spit in your tea.

I want to bring you wildflowers. I want to hold you forever.

I try glowering.

You look concerned, and then I would do anything to give you back your smile. I stop in my tracks. If I get any closer, I will just have to kiss you, and I would never kiss you in anger.

You are all stubbly and I wonder what your face will feel like in my hands. What it would feel like between my thighs. If I should just tie you to a tree and leave you for the wolves. I scowl.

You laugh.

"Oh baby, have you forgotten how to carry the kit? Do you need me to fetch Clive? because I thought you prefer to have me to yourself."

"I never asked to be alone with you"

"Not in words, perhaps"

"Well maybe if you used words instead of dark arts you might find out how I really feel"

I clench my hand in my pocket. Today it’s me who has our stone with the hole. I might throw it at you, like you do to frighten off the crows.

"Are you in some way dissatisfied?"

Your face has swung shut like a door, and I want nothing better than to scratch to be let in like a puppy. But this needs saying.

"I brought my family here and asked you to join us. What made you think it was up to you who goes and who stays?"

I expected you to snark back at me. Or perhaps say nothing at all. I didn't expect you to look broken.

"I didn't think that. I didn't. I'm sorry baby. I think I have fucked it all up."

* * *

I don't know how I have ended up comforting you. The log we are sitting on is a bit rotten and the mushrooms make you look like some sort of forlorn pixie. If pixies wore bad hats and wellies. I'm hugging you and I realize you hardly ever accept being touched by me if it isn't performing or fucking.

I think about you leaning against Charlotte on the sofa and the way she will pull a stray thread for you, or tuck in your collar. I have never even held your hand when someone else has seen us. I maybe never will.

I've read about these artists who had love triangles with each other and lived on a farm where they made paintings. You say people should be shocked but then you don't want to show them anything shocking. Spit it out Jimmylove.

"She says we can have a baby. But."

"But what? You have to make sure it never touches a spindle?"

"No. Don't, Robert."

"But what?"

"I'm really sorry baby. I am."

You are freaking me out now. What have you done? You and your headtrips. I hold you and things smell rotten. Things are crumbling under my fingers.

"She says I can't try to make a home with you too."

"Who is she, your fucking mother? Jesus fucking wept Jimmy. Why the fuck did you tell her anything?"

"Because it never mattered Robert. It was never going to happen anyway. Was it?"

Why is she doing this to me To _me_? I really really liked her. I still like her. I hate her guts. I hate how she can claim you. I hate what she can give you. I hate how much I care.

"It wasn't yours to promise"

"But it wasn't yours to give. You are already married. You have a daughter. You have a bloody farm."

I realize I am holding your arms hard enough to bruise but you haven't pushed me away.

"But you have_ me_. Always."

"I know. Always. Under the same sun."

You kiss me then. The scratch of your beard is unfamiliar. You smell like home. I press our stone into your hand, and you take it.

"Go then. Go and make your baby. They're going tomorrow."

"No. Sing to me first. Sing me the song you wouldn't show me. Under the apple tree."

So, I do and my voice breaks. Then you make me do it a third time with the tape spinning.

It's a song about America, about the beautiful boys who watch us, about the land itself. It's a song about how I long for you. It's a song those boys will understand, but others will choose not to. You look so beautiful playing it. Your eyes closed. The way you give everything to it.

Like the way you look in my bed.

With your hair falling over me like water.

My husband.

Wherever we are.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * It's all right Ma, (I'm only bleeding) - Bob Dylan | Bringing it all Back Home 1965
> 
> other lyric snippets from: 
> 
> That's The Way from Led Zeppelin III 1970  
Written at Bron-Yr-Aur cottage; Cymru 
> 
> Please forgive the terrible liberties I have taken with the likenesses of real people from RP and JP's families - who are not to be confused with the actual humans with their private lives. I mean it. We know nothing at all about them and I honour them while trespassing against them. 
> 
> This story took a lot longer to write than I ever intended, and I think I have changed as a writer while writing it. I would love to hear your take on it, just hang out and chat, or if you just want to leave some mark of passing through I love to get emoji.

**Author's Note:**

> All this is in my head as we all realise but Charlotte, Maureen, and little Carmen are characters only lightly drawn from real people who share their names. I believe Robert and Jimmy the characters are from our collective fannish soul, and are drawn from the performances of Led Zeppelin on and off stage. Their family members don’t need anyone poking round in their real lives and so they are not researched or developed. All I ask is that we are grateful to the real women who supported Zeppelin without whom none of their fame or their fandom would be possible.
> 
> edit: 20200304 I changed the order of the title of this story to avoid confusion with a collab I'm writing :) lbt


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